News 1

Current News - Fall 2002

Lecture Notes: These are pdf version of the PowerPoint lectures.

Recent Relevant Articles -- a new feature to explore

The Latest Course News -- most recent news first

20 December:

Your exam and journal are in the boxes inside the front door of Walter Hall. They will also be there when you get back in January.

Your exam grade can be found on the WebCT site. Once you log in and go to the Bio 45 page, there will be a link to your grades. There you will find the 3rd eam grade and your final letter grade. There is also a link to the histogram for the 3rd exam grades. The answer key to the 3rd exam is here.

Course Grades:
You could have earned 200 points for the course.

I normalized all exam grades to a mean of 38 (that meant adding three points to your exam 2 grade and 2 points to your exam 3 grade). I ranked people based on their total scores. I also did ranking with discounting an dropping the lowest exam grade to see if it made any significant differences for some people. Basically it did not.

The final grades were determined from the ranked totals and adjustments were made for those near borderlines based on their journals (how complete, how much understanding it reflected) and their participation in discussions).

Roughly speaking, an A = substantially above the mean on all three exams (generally 175-200 points) , B = above the mean on at least two of the exams (generally 150 – 175 points), C = below the mean on all exams and less than 150 points. NC = less than 125 points out of 200.

10 November:

There is a provisional exam key here - the exams should be ready on Wednesday - the key may change.

I have posted the lecture for Monday (parental care) - there are 4 slides per page - feel free to print it out for taking notes in lecture. I will try to stay ahead on lectures so you can do this regularly.

22 October:

WebCT is here. Please give it a try. Go to http://webct.brown.edu/ and follow the directions. You should arrive at a page you can access Bio 45 from. Once there, You will find two important links:

1. "Web Page" - that takes you to our normal web site - it will be the main source of information and handouts, etc.

2. "Discussions" - here is the place to share ideas with classmates, TAs and me. Give it a try. It can only be accessed through WebCT.

21 October:

I will be soon posting pdf versions of lectures 2-1 through 2-8 (today's lecture) in the Lecture Notes section.

The handout for section this week (the nature of sex) is missing a second page - containing an assignment for section. You can get the complete version from the handout's section (section #6).

9 October:

The answer key is available in the exam section of the web site -- Next to its link is a link to the grade distribution.

There is a handout for today's lecture (which I will finish on Friday) in the handout section of the web site

7 October:

The Norris article can be found under "Proceedings: Biological Sciences" in the e-journals list.

6 October 2002:

Here is the guide to the paper by Norris you are reading for section this week.

28 September 2002:

I have added pdf versions of lectures 1-11. They are large (500K to 1M) so be warned if you are using a modem to download them.

Review Sessions for 1st Exam

Sunday: 7-9 Oceans - Robin & Ben
Monday: 4-6 - Waage - location to be announced
Tuesday:
10:30-1 Bio med 115b Robin
12-4 Bio med 115 b Dan, Maggie, Ben
7-9 Sci Li Mez: Emily, Rob

19 September 2002:

I have added the missing handouts to the handouts page. We are now up-to-date there (the Journal #2 and Discussion #3 handouts are being worked on and will be there and handed out in class Friday)

I have also posted pdf copies of the 2000 first exam and answer key to the Exams section of the web site. These are for getting acquainted with my exams and questions not for determining what material will be covered.

I have also received copies from several students of a New York Times article, "In Nature vs. Nurture, a Voice for Nature" about a new book, "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature," on the subject by Steven Pinker, a psychologist/linguist at the MIT. I told you the subject just does not go away.

9 September 2002:

The Revised section lists are posted here.

I will be posting versions of the Powerpoint lectures early in the week

Monday handouts will include Instructions for the 1st journal assignment and the 1st discussion section

5 September 2002:

The preliminary section lists are posted here.

Handouts from the first lecture can be found here.

Welcome to the Bio 45 web site. Finding your way around should be pretty straight forward. If you just click on words that are blue and underlined, it will take you somewhere. Getting back is a matter of clicking on the "back" or "last page" button on your browser or on a topic on the list in the upper left of this and all other pages.

The section list will be posted in the "Sections" section. I will pass the list around in the first three classes and you will initial your name. Failing to do so means we assume you have dropped the class and we will replace you.

If you want to start on your journal just find an animal to watch and describe in great detail what it is doing. Check the Journal Basics handout first and/or visit the "Journal" part of this web site.